How to Create a Lead Magnet That Works?

I got a good question from a mentee today. What is better as a lead magnet? A webinar, ebook, or a short PDF? So let’s answer that today right now. Now we have done it all. PDF webinar, virtual event, ebook, audio, multimedia, you name it, we have tested them all. I mean them all. So I want you to think about this first. Someone is scrolling through social media and they see your ad and they click on your ad. Now I’ll pop up a landing page, a lead magnet page, “Hey, give us your name and email, we are going to give you this in exchange.” Now think about this. They are busy. They’re just scrolling through their social media.

Are Webinars an Effective Lead Magnet?

Now, if you are asking them for, “Hey, give me your name and email I to give you a 90 minute webinar,” that is a big ask. You think about it. Not only are you asking them for the information, so permission to market to them, you’re asking them to give you 60 minute, 90 minute of their time when they’re on the go, they’re just scrolling something or they’ve got other things going on, or their kids are screaming in the background or they’re driving somewhere or they’re waiting on something. Does that make sense? That’s a big commitment to ask.

So it’s like this. I’m going to give you a dating metaphor. You just met someone casually at the bar for three seconds and you say and you ask them, “Would you like to go out with me right now to a 90 minute candle like dinner?” You don’t know me yet. That’s a big ask. Even if the person is hungry, that’s a big ask, right? That’s asking for a lot. That’s what you’re doing, when you say, “Hey, you don’t know me from Adam. You click on my ad. Give me 90 minutes of your time.” They’re like, “No, I’m not going to give you 90 minutes of my time.” That’s not a very good lead magnet from my perspective. Now it used to work. It doesn’t work as well today because people have short attention span. Does that make sense?

Can an eBook Lead Magnet Be Effective?

So let me give you another example. Same scenario. You just met someone. They don’t know you and you are telling them, “Hey, you know what? We just met for three seconds. Let me tell you all my history, right? Let me give you my 889 page ebook. Let me tell you I’ve got three kids. Let me tell you I have been divorced. Let me tell you every single romantic relationships I’ve ever had in my entire life.” They’re like, “What the heck? This is too much.” Well, when you offer them your 854 page ebook upfront as a lead magnet, that’s what you are doing. You might think you are impressing them, you might think you’re over delivering, you are not. You’re turning them off.

So instead what you do, you make it very, very low friction and low commitment or no commitment. Hey, you just met someone. How about not even a phone number? “How about let’s connect through Instagram? Let me add your IG, you add my IG or WeChat?” or something like that. Very, very low commitment. And here’s the thing, you make it no risk. No risk to the prospect, meaning they could ignore you. So maybe they don’t like you, but they add your IG and you connect. If you send a message, they could easily block you and ignore you, that’s okay. That’s low bare of entry. They don’t want to tell it to your face. That’s fine. It’s the same thing. People could ignore your emails, that’s fine. Low commitment.

The Power of a Simple PDF Lead Magnet

So I believe the best lead magnet is something very simple. A one pager. It could be a checklist. People love checklists. Something simple. One pager, right? Even a couple pages. So very low commitment to consume, very low commitment to say yes to, and no risk to them. They could ignore you, meaning they don’t have to read your emails if they don’t want to. And they could easily unsubscribe. That’s a good lead magnet.

Now, another form of good lead magnet is some sort of test or assessment because we all want to know, right? What about our personalities? How this applies to me? You will get a very high engagement and opening rate. Now it takes more work. You need to create the assessment. You got to program it. You got to deliver software. But once it’s built, it’s highly effective because people want to know “What’s in it for me? How this would apply to my situation? It’s also a prescriptive way of offering your products and services. So assessment would be very, very effective as some sort of lead magnets. So assessment personality tests very, very effective as lead magnets. So I define this. A good lead magnet is easy to consume, low or no commitment from the prospects and provide an immediate answer to a problem they want to solve. That’s the ideal lead magnet. Until next time, let’s go high ticket.